Invictus
by RainDark
Summary: Castiel is gravely injured, and Dean is suddenly faced with an angel who needs Dean more than Dean needs Cas.  To make matters worse, this might not be something that Cas can bounce back from.  S5, Destiel  mild slash, heavy angst


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**Invictus**

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**Summary**: Castiel is gravely injured, and Dean is suddenly faced with an angel who needs Dean more than Dean needs Cas. To make matters worse, this might not be something that Cas can bounce back from. S5, Destiel (mild slash, heavy angst). Lots of swearing, Hurt/Comfort, and Cas!Whump warnings.

**AN**: I don't own anything, etc. Set somewhere in S5. First try at a Supernatural fic, and considering I've been a die-hard Destiel fan for like a whole week now, that's what you can expect from this story. I started reading fanfiction and was kind of floored by how many super good ones I found right away... not really used to that from my classic fandoms. So I hope I do it justice.

Also I'm a veteran fic writer of about eight years, but not in this genre so: feel free to point out any in-your-face errors. They're bound to crop up. Did I mention slash? Don't like, don't read. If it's not your cup of tea, no worries: there won't be anything graphic. At least, nothing I've planned so far. If it still pops up, I will give you due warning.

The only other note I have about this story is A) I have no idea where it is going at the moment and B) my only real goal is to examine a little more closely and a little more realistically the unfolding relationship between Dean and Castiel, one obviously straight man and one celestial force. I think there's a lot of interesting angles and possibilities there that have not necessarily been explored by the classic Dean/Cas shippers. You'll have to let me know if you have any thoughts on this.

Enough of that. Read away!

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**Chapter One**

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It wasn't the first time Dean Winchester had found himself glass-pissing mad at a member of the heavenly host, and if some act of God didn't smite him down unexpectedly within the week, then he was fairly certain it wouldn't be the last. He was counting on it.

"Dean, would you slow down already?" Sam managed to growl past his white-knuckled grip on the Impala's passenger doorframe. "We'll be no good to anybody if you get us both killed. In a car wreck, of all things."

The compulsory jabs about his little brother's vagina or some such nonsense went unsaid, this time. Even if his jumbled mind could have managed to string something together, Dean couldn't really count on it making it out of his mouth as anything more refined than "fuck you kindly". He'd never been able to keep his emotions far off his sleeve, and they rode there now quite proudly in his death-grip on the steering wheel and the granite set of his jaw. Well, that and that thin red line pushing 95 on his speedometer. Just that.

"Seriously Dean." Sam was speaking up now just for the sake of being the responsible one; even he wasn't stupid enough to imagine that his half-hearted protests were going to get through to his brother in this state of mind. The truth was that he was probably just as worried about Castiel as his brother was.

_Damn you, Cas._

As usual, the socially awkward fallen angel was at the heart of Dean's stress on this particular night. This time it was more than some vaguely-cryptic cell-phone message that ended with an abrupt invasion of Dean's personal space. This time it was a hundred times worse, and the elder Winchester brother hadn't thought that was really possible. Didn't it always go like that with angels? What pricks.

No, this time it had been a cell-phone message, and that was where the similarities had ended. And Dean had missed it for hours because he'd been _out drinking_ because the _fucking apocalypse could wait_ because _damnit he was Dean Winchester_ and he'd just gotten off a case, and what the hell could be so important? The bar was dim, the girls were cute, and Sam was sitting right there next to him downing shots in a rare display of brotherly camaraderie. There just couldn't be anything else that could demand his immediate attention right then and there. So he'd left his phone in his motel room and he'd drank himself senseless and collapsed back into his bed in the early hours of the morning without checking it, and how could he have been _so stupid?_

"Dean."

Sam's warning tone snapped his brother from his rampaging self-accusations and guilt. He spared a sharp look down at his speedometer and grimaced to see he was pushing 105 now. Why did that seem so slow?

Because the night was dark and his mind didn't hesitate to fill it with possible images and scenarios and—and maybe he wasn't really angry at an angel. He was angry at himself, because of all the nights for him to forget his phone and ditch all the responsibilities that came with being a hunter and a chosen vessel and all of that shit—it had to be the night when Cas would actually need him. _Need him._

Slowing down reluctantly—if reducing one's speed from hellhound bait to breakneck counted as slowing down—Dean let out a shaky, measured breath.

He could still recall all too distinctly waking up from a bad hangover sometime around noon earlier that day and switching on his phone; still remember groaning groggily as he found six missed calls from everyone's favorite heavenly messenger and reluctantly dialed up his voice mail. He could still feel that gut-punch clench in his chest; still remember what it felt like to _stop fucking breathing_ for an agonizing moment. Despite six missed calls, he'd only had one voice mail, and it had been mostly static silence, which had maybe been the most frightening part. Or maybe not, because the part that _wasn't silence _had been a thousand times worse.

It had been Cas, of that he was sure. He didn't need words to recognize him. And he did recognize him, or at least the sound of the celestial being's labored breathing, like he was dying or something. If that wasn't enough to freeze the blood in his veins, the one painful, slurred word that followed certainly was.

"_Dean_..."

After helpfully supplying a few more moments of agonized, rasping gasps, the phone ran down it's timer and cut him off. In the past four hours both brothers had played and replayed that message maybe a hundred times, trying miserably to gather some kind of clue as to the angel's whereabouts. Without anything solid to go on, they were jetting now in the direction of Chicago, Castiel's last known location. All they could do was hope against hope that some miraculous sign appeared to show them where to go from there. Neither of them wanted to admit that they could be headed further from their friend with every passing second.

The silence in the car was agonizing, but Dean couldn't bring himself to break it—not with the radio, not with conversation—certainly not with a one-hundred and second repeat of that damned voice message, that managed to be so vague and so torturous all at the same time.

_Just like you, Cas._ Dean's inner voice snarled in something between contempt and desperation. _Motherfucker never could give me a straight answer to anything._

"Is that—" Sam broke through that haze again, but this time it wasn't necessary. Dean saw it too.

"It's gotta be." Dean's voice was raspy and dark from disuse (not from heart-stopping worry; not from concern), and he swallowed hard.

He hadn't missed it. Like a faint, pulsating beacon of light shooting directly up into the sky from the slowly approaching Chicago skyline, there appeared a shining symbol he'd seen too many times by now to mistake. Granted, he'd never seen it in this form, or behaving in this manner, but it could only be an angel's Grace. And considering the fact that they were only looking for one angel in Chicago, he was willing to make an educated guess that it was Cas. The beam pulsed and flickered weakly, only flashing up into the night every ten or fifteen seconds. It seemed to be growing dimmer. The fact that it was there at all injected an unexpected dose of hope into Dean's heart, but it's frightening dimness also reconfirmed all of his worst fears.

Grinding his teeth, Dean dropped his foot onto the gas pedal, speed limits be damned.

_I'm coming, Cas._

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How long did it take for them to zero in on that all-but-invisible beam of light? Minutes, hours? Years? It felt like years.

Sam had given up protesting Dean's reckless driving long ago, and had settled for cramming himself back into his seat with as much force as he could muster, as if that would somehow buffer the brothers from the dangers of the road.

"There." Sam pointed out, and Dean made a 90 degree veer off the road that probably should have killed them. They had detoured into an eerily quiet, semi-industrial section of the city, lit here and there by a dim streetlight or a storefront safety light. Dean kept scanning the buildings, certain that all angel-scale battles must take place in the spacious but secluded confines of just such a familiar location.

"The bridge." Sam supplied. "I think it's coming from the bridge."

Dean tore his eyes from the passing storefronts to zero in on the overpass just ahead. Sam was right. The flickering light cast a faint glow on the concrete underbelly of the freeway, and the Imapala skidded to a rough stop on the gravel beneath. Dean all but threw himself out of the car, already reaching for his gun.

"Here's his phone." Sam called from the other side, holding up a small pay-by-the-minute cell with a shattered screen. "I've got a feeling it wasn't Cas who dialed us, Dean."

"Son of a bitch." Dean cursed under his breath, heading for the massive concrete pillars at a half-jog. Sam's lumbering gait followed close behind. His brother had had the foresight to bring the shotgun loaded with rock salt; Dean had only his handgun and a flask of holy water to defend himself, but no way in hell was he wasting any more time. A sick feeling in his gut supplied the helpful notion that they might already be too late. That call had come hours ago, for Christ's sake. Who knew what could have transpired in that amount of time.

At first sight, it felt like every one of his deepest fears had been confirmed. A limp body hung, suspended by chains between the two closest pillars of the overpass. A head of sweat-soaked brown hair hung low against a blood-stained chest and the familiar tan trench coat hung in tatters around the angel's broken frame.

"Jesus, Cas." Dean was by the angel's side in a heartbeat, hands coming up to cup his face, brush his hair back, try to get a glimpse of blue eyes.

The angel, thankfully semi-alert, flinched slightly at the contact. He seemed disoriented and barely conscious. "Sam… Dean…?" He mumbled around what sounded like a broken jaw, head lolling.

"Yeah buddy, I gotcha."

Dean indulged himself in a relieved, breathless moment, pressing his forehead gently to the angel's moist one.

"Let's get you out of here, alright? I'm gonna get you out of here." Sounding rallied, Dean turned his attention to the lock on the angel's left wrist. Cas' head lolled unresponsively. He barely seemed to hear the brothers.

Moving quickly, Sam circled around the strung-up form, moving for the chains that bound him to the pillar on the other side. He froze, eyes widening as he took in the pale white flesh of Castiel's back, now scarred and horribly burned with what appeared to be a massive Enoachian sigil. He'd never seen anything like it on a human—or angelic—body before.

"What is—" Sam reached out to gently touch the charred and burned flesh, but never had time to finish his sentence. As soon as his fingers brushed the skin, Castiel arched back against his chains like he'd been burned, biting his lip to rein in a gasp of pain.

"Easy Cas." The stress in Dean's tone was palpable. He spared only a moment's glance at the angel's pained face before returning his full attention to the locks. The first one finally sprang free and Sam caught the slighter man's dropped weight.

Dean had the second lock open in half the time, and tried to ignore the choked noises of pain as they gently laid the angel down.

"On his side." Sam cautioned.

Dean had not yet seen the horrendous brand, but it was revealed in full to him now. His dark expression deepened, and his lips drew into a thin, angry line.

Sam watched him carefully. "Dean?"

"Yeah."

"I think we should get him to the car."

"I got him." Before Sam could protest, the elder Winchester had hefted the slighter form into his arms with more gentleness than Sam would have thought possible. The angel didn't even cry out this time, his head lolling down against Dean's shoulder. The simple human expression was heart wrenching—mostly because Sam never _had _seen the angel looking so human.

Sam strode ahead of the pair to pull open the Impala door. He didn't bother asking; he took the keys from his brother and started up the engine. Dean carefully situated the wounded angel in the backseat.

"I don't understand." Dean muttered, carefully pillowing up his precious leather coat to keep Cas' head off the seat. "He's not healing. It's like he's mortal or something. This shouldn't be happening to him."

Sam pursed his lips and did not disagree. He had as many questions as his brother, but right now one of them needed to keep a level head and it didn't look like that was going to be Dean. His brother would never admit it, but he'd gotten damn attached to the angel over the past year. Even if he was angry or frustrated with him half the time, that was simply the surest possible sign that he cared. It was Dean's way.

This concept was confirmed as Dean climbed without argument into the passenger seat, one hand moving to the backseat to grip Castiel's forearm. The gesture was meant to be comforting, but Sam doubted the angel was aware of his surroundings enough to appreciate it right now. The only person Dean was comforting at the moment was himself. Feeling Cas' dimming warmth there under his hand was the only way the elder Winchester could be sure he was still there at all.

"We need to find a motel." Sam began thinking out loud. "We can't take him to a hospital."

"We passed one on the way in." The dark undertone to Dean's voice made Sam cast him a worried glance. Dean's crippling concern had faded into cold anger, and that never ended well.

"Dean—" Sam tried hesitantly.

"Not now, Sammy." The words brooked no argument. "Let's take care of him first, alright?"

Sam didn't argue. He pointed the Impala towards the city limits and drove.

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